Soundwave

Listen To This

“I had forgotten my mother’s laughter entirely until the little silver orb returned it to the room after twenty years.”

— The Lanterns of Hollowmere, Act V, Scene II

Every spoken word dies almost immediately.
A confession fades. A song vanishes into silence. Final conversations disappear forever the instant air stops vibrating. Entire lives dissolve into memory because sound is among the most temporary things mortals create.
Soundwave was invented by people unwilling to accept that.
The spell creates a hovering sphere of compressed acoustic resonance capable of capturing and replaying audible sound with startling fidelity. Voices, music, arguments, footsteps, laughter, breaking glass, rainfall, gunfire, whispered threats, and dying breaths can all be preserved briefly within the floating sphere as though time itself hesitated before allowing the moment to disappear completely.
Watching the spell function feels strangely delicate.
During recording, the sphere glows softly while subtle ripples move across its surface in rhythm with nearby sound. Loud noises distort the light violently. Quiet speech causes faint pulses barely visible in darkness. Some observers compare it to watching invisible vibrations trapped inside glass.
Bards embraced the spell immediately.
Musicians preserve melodies before writing them down. Actors rehearse performances repeatedly by replaying their own voices. Storytellers collect regional dialects, rare songs, and oral histories that might otherwise vanish with the people speaking them.
A few famous composers reportedly became obsessed with the spell after realizing they could hear themselves make mistakes.
Artificers found even broader practical uses. Engineers replay machinery sounds to identify faults. Investigators preserve witness statements. Scholars record lectures and debates. Sailors capture coded signals and navigational instructions during storms where written communication becomes impossible.
Naturally, spies and criminals adopted the spell just as quickly.
Blackmail became considerably easier once incriminating conversations could be replayed perfectly later. Secret meetings stopped feeling truly private. Political scandals erupted after stolen Soundwave recordings spread through noble courts and crowded taverns alike.
Several kingdoms attempted briefly to outlaw unsanctioned auditory recording magic.
Enforcement failed almost immediately.
The spell’s ability to reverse playback fascinated wizards and occult scholars for decades. Most sounds become grotesque and alien when reversed, but certain practitioners insist hidden emotional patterns emerge more clearly that way. Superstitious investigators sometimes replay final words backward while searching for lies, hidden names, or supernatural influence.
This rarely helps.
It does occasionally terrify people.
Warlocks, predictably, discovered unsettling applications quickly. Some use the spell to replay whispers at distorted speeds until voices become nearly inhuman. Others preserve screams, prayers, or dying words as ritual components for darker workings.
Certain occult investigators refuse to listen to unknown recordings alone after sunset.
Probably wisely.
The spell’s inability to record magical sound perceived solely through supernatural means prevents abuse involving telepathy and hidden mystical communication, though arguments continue among scholars regarding where “natural” hearing actually ends once magic modifies ordinary perception.
No consensus currently exists.
The sphere’s dim glow during playback became culturally recognizable over time. Seeing floating pale light accompanied by disembodied voices tends to unsettle people instinctively even in societies familiar with magic. Hearing a dead person speak from empty air months after burial remains emotionally difficult regardless of technological explanation.
Because voices carry presence.
A written letter informs.
A preserved voice haunts.
Many grieving families commission mages to preserve final messages or important memories before funerals. Parents record lullabies. Lovers exchange preserved promises before dangerous journeys. Soldiers leave spoken farewells behind before campaigns expected to end badly.
Some recordings become treasured heirlooms.
Others become unbearable to replay.
Among investigators, performers, and historians alike, one warning regarding the spell remains common.
People become much less honest once they suspect silence may no longer be temporary.

“The dead boy’s voice issued forth from the silver sphere so clearly that even his mother turned toward the sound before remembering he had long since been buried.”

— The Bells Beneath Greywater, Act IV, Scene III

Related Discipline

Transmutation

Level

Level 2

Unknown Shores

Soundwave

2-level Transmutation

Casting Time: 1 action

Range/Area: Touch

Components: Verbal, Somatic, Material

Materials: a hollow seashell, crystal vial, or similar resonant object worth at least 1 sp

Duration: 1 hour

You magically imprint up to 30 seconds of audible sound you can hear into the spell's material component. The recording begins when you choose and ends automatically after 30 seconds or when you end it early (no action required).
The spell can capture only naturally audible sound. It can't record sound perceived solely through magic, telepathy, or supernatural senses.
While the spell lasts, you can use a bonus action to cause the object to reproduce the recorded sound. You can begin playback from any point within the recording, stop it at any time, play it in reverse, or alter its speed from half speed to double speed.
The reproduced sound originates from the object and remains audible out to 30 feet.
Recording new sound erases any previously stored recording.

At higher levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the maximum recording length increases by 30 seconds for each slot level above 2nd.

Available for: Artificer, Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard